True Crime Friday: Richard Trenton Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento Serial Killer
Richard Trenton Chase was born May 23, 1950. He was a malicious serial killer and anyone who reads my articles you know that I have written about some very disturbed killers. He was also a cannibal and necrophile. His reign of terror began in December of 1977 and he was arrested January, 1978. He gained the moniker of the Vampire of Sacramento because he drank his victim’s blood. Those victims included human beings, birds, cats, dogs, horses and cows.
The Early Childhood of Richard Chase
Richard Trenton Chase was born and raised in California. He had a younger sibling. It was said that his parents were abusive and neglectful to their children. The parents constantly fought leaving the children feeling unsafe in their own home. The father had numerous affairs which cause the arguments throughout Chase’s childhood. By the time Chase was five years old he was displaying psychopathy traits such as cruelty to animals, fire setting and bedwetting. It was said he would find stray animals throughout the neighborhood. He would then bring them home and they would never be seen again. He was drinking the blood of the animals and eating them as well.As a child he did well in school and had a few friends. As he grew into adulthood he began to take drugs such as marijuana and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). He was said to be a handsome teenager. He later discovered that he was impotent which also played a role in his psychopathy. Richard was arrested for petty crimes as a teenager. It was recommended that he be seen regularly by a psychiatrist and receive medication for his psychosis. With his father and mother divorced, his mother did not want her son on any type of treatment plan. She took him off the medication prescribed because she said they made him a zombie.
It was August, 1977 in the state of Nevada where police found a naked man covered in blood sleeping behind the wheel of his truck. He was carrying a bucket of blood and a liver in the back of his truck. It was discovered that the liver belonged to an animal so the police let him go on his way. It would not be long after this that he would commit his first murder of an individual.
The Victims of Richard Chase
- Ambrose Griffin,
- Teresa Wallin
- Teresa Wallin’s unborn child
- Evelyn Miroth
- Daniel Meredith
- Miroth’s 6-year-old son
- An Unknown Woman
The Survivor of Richard Chase
- Nancy Westfall
According to the Mayo Clinic, schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition that affects how people think, feel and behave. It may result in a mix of hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking and behavior. Richard Chase hallucinations involved seeing things and hearing voices. People with schizophrenia can lose touch with reality. Richard Chase thought that his heart was stopping and that he needed blood to stay alive. He was on the grand scale of delusional.